NASA’s JPL Is the Only Agency on a New Top IT Employer List

The the control rooms at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Dark Room in the foreground, Deep Space Network control room on the right and the Mars Science Laboratory Mission Support Area back left.
NASA file photo

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Should your agency have ranked?

Federal agencies looking to recruit, hire and retain top-notch information technology workers may want to take a lesson from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory: it was the only federal organization to make a new list of 100 top IT employers.

ComputerWorld’s 100 Best Places to Work in IT 2014 ranked JPL in 19th place in the large organization category. The Pasadena, Calif.-based research and development center touts an Innovating Together program, where IT staffers work with scientists and engineers on interesting projects. JPL also supports a mobile workforce, where employees are given the choice to work indoors or outdoors and choose from a range of mobile devices and computers. JPL IT staffers also are given every other Friday off.

Unfortunately, no other federal agencies made the top 100 list, beat out by organizations like Quicken Loans, USAA, LinkedIn and Noah Consulting.

Aside from common benefits like health care and paid time off, leading benefits offered by the top 100 companies were flexible hours, telework, wellness programs, college tuition reimbursement, and reimbursement for technology certifications. Other areas factoring into high employee satisfaction were career development opportunities, challenging work, performance awards and positive relationships with co-workers/supervisors.

Rankings are determined based on reader nominations and employee survey data. From the final 100 companies, 23,764 IT employees responded to the employee survey.